Huawei has won a provisional injunction against sales of 4G base stations by competitor ZTE in Germany. ZTE plans to appeal.

The District Court of Mannheim found on Friday that ZTE infringes on a Huawei patent entitled "key derivation." The patent describes a way to ensure smooth handover of a signal in an LTE system, reducing the call drop rate.

The ruling is not'self-executing'. This means that if Huawei wants to immediately enforce the injunction, it will have to pay a bond of €1 million (US$1.3 million), he added.

ZTE said it would appeal the court's decision in a statement issued on Monday. "ZTE is confident that the ZTE product involved in the lawsuit doesn't infringe Huawei's patent rights," the company said.

ZTE added that the court decision would not affect any ZTE business operations around the globe including in Germany.

ZTE added that Huawei had launched several other patent lawsuits against ZTE in Germany, France and Hungary. ZTE said it had the prepared solutions to all relevant patent lawsuits.

Starting from 2011, ZTE has also filed 18 patent lawsuits against Huawei in Europe and China, concerning a portfolio of LTE infrastructure, core network and terminals.